With Coinify, the Danish blockchain payment service provider (bPSP), announcing that it has raised $4 million (m) in a ‘Series A’ investment round from
SEB Venture Capital, part of the SEB Group, and SEED Capital Denmark, a “strong message” has been sent out to the banking and Blockchain communities. It might also have given a further shot in the arm for disruptive technology.

The latest capital backing for Copenhagen-headquartered Coinify ApS, which was incorporated in 2014 and serves global payment service providers, online businesses, physical shops and individuals with easy access to blockchain currencies through ‘fiat’ money exchange, comes from two investment parties both originating out of the Nordic region.

SEB Venture Capital, the corporate venture capital unit within SEB founded in 1995, has activities spanning across the Nordic and Baltic countries and has invested over SEK3 billion (bn) over the past twenty years in 100 companies with nearly 70 companies having been divested. To date SEB VC is an active owner in 32 different companies with a total turnover of SEK2.6bn and more than 2,200 employees.

SEED Capital, which specializes in identifying and developing new and innovative tech companies, is the largest venture capital fund in Denmark for the pre-seed and seed segment with $320m under management. In February 2015, the firm sold profile start-up Endomondo.

As well as Coinify, in which it first invested in 2014, its portfolio comprises Trustpilot, wine App Vivino, Templafy designed to solve what is described as 'document anarchy', and banking App LunarWay. To date there are
77 active companies invested in by SEED Capital and the firm had attracted a total of €6.8bn investment as of this August, exited 18 companies and had held over 1,300 start-up meetings.

Fintech and currency concept image (Source: Shutterstock).

David Sonnek, Head of SEB Venture Capital, commenting in the wake of the ‘Series A’ investment says: “Coinify has developed a unique platform for blockchain payments and fits perfectly in our portfolio of fintech investments.”

This new investment in Coinify, which currently supports 15 blockchain currencies (including bitcoin, ether and ripple), comes from SEED Capital’s newly established third venture fund, SEED Capital Denmark III, a €110m fund (first closing) under the management of Ulla Brockenhuus-Schack.

Disruptive Innovation

With the blockchain having proved itself to be a resilient technology, Lars
Andersen, General Partner in SEED Capital Denmark, says: ”We believe that digital currencies and the blockchain technology have the potential to spawn decades of disruptive innovation in financial services.”

He further asserts: “Coinify has a good foothold in the market and with this particular syndication they are well positioned to play a key role in the transformation ahead.”

On A Mission

Mark Højgaard, CEO and co-founder of Coinify remarking says: “Coinify is a blockchain payment company with the mission to bridge the gap between emerging blockchain and traditional finance industries. The fact that our current investors are joined by a classic, yet very visionary bank dating back to 1856, sends a strong message to both the banking and the blockchain communities.”

SEB traces its origins back to André Oscar Wallenberg, who founded Stockholms Enskilda Bank in 1856 as Stockholm’s first private bank and one of the first commercial banks in Sweden

Højgaard, who is also a co-founder of innovative payments companies such as MobilCash, MySafePay, Bancore and Huuray, adds: “We plan to use this investment to sustain our leading position in Europe and expand our blockchain payment and trade products into Asia.” The Coinify team has had experience of working with digital currencies since 2010 with backgrounds in payments, finance, risk, e-commerce and compliance areas.

Blockchain payment technologies offer merchants and consumers potentially unrivalled benefits in terms of reducing payments’ cost and risk, as well as increasing the speed of payments.

Having been named ‘Emerging Star’ in Fintech 100, an initiative by
KPMG and H2Ventures, and won the IFM Award for ‘Best Electronic Payment Solution’, Coinify stands ready to “embrace new competitive blockchain currencies” as they evolve. Carpe diem.